Arsenal draw with Manchester United and City | OneFootball

Arsenal’s weekend ended with two hard-fought draws against Manchester opposition.

At Leigh Sports Village, Renée Slegers’ side shared the points with Manchester United in a 0-0 draw, while at the Emirates Mikel Arteta’s men were rewarded for their persistence with a 1-1 against Manchester City.

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In the WSL, Renée Slegers praised her players’ defensive resilience after a clean sheet away from home but admitted the team lacked sharpness in possession. “That’s the big summary and I’m happy with the clean sheet,” she said.

“It’s very important for us that that’s the foundation, so the players invest a lot and they did well. On the ball, especially in the second half we have more possession, more stabilised possession in the final third. We didn’t have the same quality of decision making and execution today as we usually have.”

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The defensive pairing of Katie Reid and Steph Catley drew particular praise. Slegers said: “Katie’s been with us a lot, she’s been doing that consistently within our training environment, but then doing that in training, in a safe, isolated environment, we’ve seen that, but we never knew what it would look like in the league, in competitive games, in front of a lot of people with pressure on but she does that so so well, so she looks exactly the same.

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“We have a lot of leadership in the team and Steph is a really really good leader. She has constant communication, small details, so I think Katie and Steph feel connected all game through. Steph is really important.”

At the Emirates, Mikel Arteta’s men dominated Guardiola’s side but had to wait until stoppage time for Gabriel Martinelli to cancel out Erling Haaland’s first-half strike.

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City abandoned their usual style, defending in numbers and “parking the bus” in a way more often associated with José Mourinho.

It was Arteta’s substitutions that finally broke through, although questions will be asked why Ebere Ezi didn’t start. Asked after the game if he had been ‘safety first’ with his starting XI, he said “I’ll leave it to you [to decide]. There were a lot of attacking players on.”

Saka and Eze were introduced together at half-time and Arsenal sprung into blunted life. When Martinelli came off the bench for Jurriën Timber late on, he provided the decisive touch.

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Eze’s 93rd minute long ball over the top was met by Martinelli, who calmly lifted it over Donnarumma to secure a point that Arsenal more than deserved.

After the match, Pep Guardiola admitted that Arsenal were the better side but pointed to his side playing Manchester United last week and then Champions League on Thursday to mitigate why he played more like Bolton than City. “[We] played against one of the best teams in Europe,” he added.

The 32.8% possession registered by his side at the Emirates is the lowest ever seen from a Guardiola side in a league game.

“Every team does the best to get the result,” said Arteta after the game of City’s approach. About his own side he said, “I’m very proud of the team. We dominated them, and I’m very disappointed with the result.”

In has been two-and-a-half years since Arsenal last won from a losing position at half-time in the league.